Powering Up Your Best Asset!
This is the third fourth in a series of posts that tackle the most misunderstood and under utilized skill in business environments. Leadership is influence and the difference between being good and being great.
There is a plethora of self-help guides out there that are focused on helping you to improve, enhance, advance, and progress. These guides run the gamut from list-based articles with quick and handy bullet points to programs spanning weeks or months with varying levels of immersion or intensity. If a bite-sized article each week is enough to get you going and focused on your improvement, then go for it. If you’re looking for something more in-depth, then I encourage you to start exploring your options here. It doesn’t matter which option you choose to go with because you have already started taking the most important, potent, and valuable step in your self-development - you’ve started investing in yourself.
Invest in Yourself
Your most valuable assets are yourself, your skills and talents, and your knowledge and experience. So, the best thing to do for yourself is to invest in training.
Raising your lid means doing something beyond yourself. You need to stretch yourself. Do you have a goal that you have never achieved? That’s a good place to start practicing your leadership abilities.
Challenges and goals are things that make you be a better leader. Following through with these things help you to stretch and develop beyond your current self.
I once asked an athlete I coached, “Don’t you wish that you can go play one game a year and then go to the All-Star game, or sit in a classroom one day a month and get all As?”
Wouldn’t that be great? To be able to just train for an hour or a day, and then come out and be the champion you always knew you were?
The reality is that there is no success in doing something once. Doing something over and over again, to gain mastery, is difficult. It’s hard. No one likes to be uncomfortable. No one. Not even me. And, I talk to people about shaking their worlds up constantly.
What you need to understand is that the discomfort is temporary. Everything that is worthwhile is up-hill. If it wasn’t, everybody would be successful. Everybody would be leaders.
Greatness has to go through a town called Discomfort.
Now, remember, I don’t say “Stay in Discomfort”. I say, “Go through it”
To get to greatness - to get to something beyond yourself - you have to go through it. And, that will set you apart because 90% of the people out there are just not willing to do it. They are just not willing to be uncomfortable for a season, temporarily, in order to get to the level that they want to be. They can desire it all they want. Just like on the graph we showed, the Success Desire may be really, really high, but if they don’t have the Leadership Ability, that’s all it is. It just a desire.
You have to walk through that town. You have to get through it.
Why Invest in Training?
“Why can’t I just read an article and then instantly get better?”
There’s nothing to say that you won’t get better or improve significantly after reading an article or a book. The key here is that you want to be able to perform at your best each and every time. And, that takes a little bit more than just reading an article. If you want to get really good at something, you need to practice it.
Let’s get back to that athlete I mentioned. When people talk about great athletes, they throw around phrases like “natural-born talent”. It sounds like a great compliment but it also does a disservice to the athlete him/herself.
The assumption that too many people make is that if you are a “natural-born talent”, you don’t have to work at it anymore. That’s a lie. Many great athletes will tell you that being born with a natural talent for something does not mean that they didn’t have to work hard at it. And, if you still think that natural-born talent is a huge biological advantage that mere mortals like you could never hope to surmount, then you need to talk to Michael Jordan.
More than anyone else, athletes understand that practice makes perfect and that talent will only get you so far. You may have a talent for hitting balls out of the park, but that talent does not guarantee that you will do that every time. If you want to hit it out of the park each and every time, then you need to practice doing it until it becomes a habit.
That’s what Excellence really is. It’s a habit. More importantly, it’s a habit that you can start right now.
Forget the movies. No one goes to an audition and then gets on an unstoppable train to stardom. No one just turns up at a try-out and gets picked for the first-string team and signs a multi-million dollar contract.
Behind every story of success you hear is something else you don’t - the hours and hours of practice until excellence becomes a habit.
Am I Ready to Invest in Myself?
Right now, you’re thinking, “Wow! That sounds intense! I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”
Are you aiming for an Olympic gold medal in tennis? Because, if you are, then it is going to get intense. Especially if you’ve never played tennis before.
If you’re looking to improve yourself and raise your leadership skills, then you are ready. The fact you’re reading this article shows that you are more than a little curious. But, actually, the real question you’re asking is not whether you’re ready; it’s whether you’re willing.
“Am I willing to put in the time?”
“Am I willing to suffer for this?”
“Is this going to be painful?”
“Can I take this?”
“What if I decide to chicken out? Will I hate myself more?”
There are a lot of questions and uncertainties that
accompany this type of journey.. That’s why great athletes always credit their coaches, families, and friends. Because these are the people who helped lift their lids. Coaches help them discover the answers that are already in them when they can’t see what they’re doing wrong and don’t know why. Families give them support and a strong base to work from. Friends give them encouragement that they need to keep going on the right path.
This is not a journey that you need to take alone. As a business owner and trainer myself, I have found that having a great, accredited coach helped me tremendously by giving me solid steps to focus on and robust feedback to reflect on.
With a great mentor, I can rely on their knowledge and expertise. I can focus on what I need to do right now without worrying about what the next step should be.
“Should I stop what I’m doing right now and google what I should do next so that I can prepare for that?”
No. Focus on you. And, let your coach and mentor focus on the process of training and pouring their expertise into you that will take you to the major leagues.
Let’s Raise the Lid
I’ve worked with a lot of people, helping them to become better versions of themselves and realizing their Leadership Abilities. Success may not come in a day, but it will come. It may be uncomfortable now, but, remember, you only need to pass through the town called Discomfort. You don’t have to stay there.
If you’re interested in raising your lid and becoming the best leader that you can be, then click here for a quick and friendly chat on how I can help you. No strings attached. No purchase necessary. Just drop me a note. I am more than happy to share my thoughts and insights with you.
Have an extraordinary day! And, remember - Excellence is a Habit.
FREE Leadership Training Session
If you work with a team and you’d like to find out more about how Leadership Training can help you, then you should sign up for our free 45-minute Leadership Training Session. Bring your lunch and your questions, and I’ll bring my knowledge and a presentation of leadership principles that can help you and your team raise your Lid.
STRATASCENSION was founded on the notion that business is relational and growth is achieved through the deepening of all the micro-connections between people, processes, tools, & performance. We want to help small businesses enhance these connections and leverage them for transformation.